Lara Logan Assaulted During Egypt Protests (Updated)

On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a “60 Minutes” story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.

In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.

There will be no further comment from CBS News and correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time.

Truly horrendous. We wish her a speedy recovery.

UPDATE: In an interview the night before her attack, Logan described being detained a week earlier:

“We were not attacked by crazy people in Tahrir Square. We were detained by the Egyptian army. Arrested, detained, and interrogated. Blindfolded, handcuffed, taken at gunpoint, our driver beaten. It’s the regime that arrested us. They arrested [our producer] just outside of his hotel, and they took him off the road at gunpoint, threw him against the wall, handcuffed him, blindfolded him. Took him into custody like that.”

She was accused of being an Israeli spy and then told to leave the country. The day she arrived back in Egypt, Feb. 11, the assault happened. Esquire has published additional excerpts from the interview in light of today’s news.

She had returned to Egypt to interview Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who played a key role in organizing the uprising that led to Mubarak’s ouster. The interview was to be done for 60 Minutes, and Harry Smith wound up conducting it instead.

Sources familiar with the situation say Logan has recovered to the point that she was expected to be released from the hospital Tuesday night or Wednesday and reunited with her two young children. She is described as being in remarkably good spirits despite her ordeal. …

There are obviously unanswered questions about what happened. Was anyone arrested? How was she saved? How bad were her injuries? But CBS isn’t providing further details out of respect for Logan’s privacy. At least we know how the story turned out, with Logan recuperating and heading home.